(Bloomberg) --

Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party, CHP, filed a criminal complaint against top government aides for restricting access to Twitter earlier this week during critical hours of search and rescue efforts after two devastating earthquakes. 

The CHP’s complaint targeted telecoms watchdog BTK, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top aide Fahrettin Altun, and Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Adil Karaismailoglu. While the BTK didn’t explicitly confirm restricting access, it met with Twitter representatives on Wednesday to warn about adhering to local disinformation laws. 

The hours-long blackout drew the ire of critics, who said thousands were cut off from using a vital communication channel to alert search groups about the whereabouts of missing people or to pass on information of the needs in the region. 

Erdogan acknowledged that efforts to dispatch emergency response to the region were delayed. However, officials have deemed some social media posts that questioned the state response to the earthquakes as “disinformation.” 

Hours before the blackout, CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu held Erdogan and his administration responsible for the delayed response and accused them of squandering taxpayers’ money earmarked for preparing for such disasters. The death toll from the quakes has surpassed 20,000 across Turkey and neighboring Syria, with thousands still missing.

Erdogan has in recent years clamped down on social media platforms by passing laws that seek to tighten his control of the content. A recent law on “disinformation” has been denounced by journalists and opposition politicians as censorship. 

The government blocked access to social media channels in other critical incidents, including a deadly bombing at the heart of Istanbul late last year.

--With assistance from Patrick Sykes.

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